Chapter Nineteen
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
Jae
I wind my way through the tables in the cafeteria with my plate of lasagna, crisp around the edges.
In my periphery is Derek’s table, the Who’s Who of Bellwood High.
Is that her? someone whispers. The kind of whisper that wants to be heard.
A loud snicker follows. I clench my teeth, remembering Derek on the floor of the yacht, hiding from his friends.
Is it that hard for people to stand with me?
I keep my gaze forward and head toward the Free Verse table, wondering if I’ll have a seat there today or if I’ve been cast off the island. Maybe I ruined the best chance at friendship I had.
I revise Tuesday’s scene in my head: me and Swan at the banyan tree. Who is that? she asks. My cousin, I answer. But I know this better than anyone else: That lie could never roll off my tongue. June is my baby. My daughter. Mine.
CJ, William, and Swan look up as I set my tray down. Almost down. It hovers millimeters above the surface. “Can I sit here?” I ask.
“Why would you even ask?” William says. “Of course you can.”
I expect that from William, so I glance at CJ and Swan. CJ nods vigorously and mm-hmms around a full mouth. Swan nods, avoiding my eyes.
I sigh into my seat. My tray thunks onto the table. “So. How are you all doing?” I ask, fiddling with my carton of chocolate milk.
“We’re doing quite well. How are you, Jae?” Swan asks.
“Fine,” I say weakly, and lean over my food.
Swan is unusually quiet, content to write in her poetry notebook in silence, and I feel a niggling guilt. Was I wrong for running off?
And then comes a rush of righteous indignation. It was an uncomfortable situation because Swan made it that way. How could I tell her the truth after what she said about her birth mother?
“He keeps staring at you,” William says, interrupting my thoughts.
My heart jumps. Derek? I take a quick peek just as he looks away. He’s sitting at the end of the jock table, leaning back with arms crossed. Too cool to do anything, including eat.
“Did you put a spell on him?” William asks.
“Me?” I guffaw. “A spell? Right. Like I could do that.”
Just then, Valeria sashays over to Derek, leans forward in her low-cut shirt, and shows him a picture on her phone. He chuckles, then goes back to sitting cool. And she!—she just stands there, manicured hand on his shoulder, bum so close to his cheek that if he turned his head he’d be kissing it.
“How is he?” CJ asks.
“Huh?”
“He’s helping you with the planning and all that?”
I nod. “He’s come up with two great ideas already. It’s just … he’s confusing.”
“Confusing or confused?” CJ says, pushing a piece of notebook paper toward me. I scribble on it—Nature never did betray the heart that loved her. —William Wordsworth—and slide it back to him. He starts folding.
William cuts into his lasagna with flimsy knife and fork and takes a hungry bite. “You won’t have to worry about him for much longer. So take heart.”
Unfortunately, I actually like spending time with Derek. He’s smart and funny and I keep discovering things that soften his edge. But his friends are the element that completely sours the milk.
“You could just not have us plan the open mic together,” I say.
“It’s tradition,” Swan counters, like that ends the conversation. Like being a senior gives her all the power.
I make my voice light. “He found an amazing venue. A yacht. Isn’t that cool? We went yesterday. It was actually a lot of fun at first. We just stuck to topics around the poetry club, nothing too deep.”
“Surprise, surprise,” Swan mutters, not even looking up. CJ raises his eyebrows, and William gives a dramatic shrug, two hands in the air like he’s carrying platters. I decide to ignore her.
“But anyway,” I continue, “when the yacht got close to his friend’s house, he hid. But it was too late. They saw us.”
“He ran off?” William asks, incredulous. CJ snorts and shakes his head.
“No, he dropped to the yacht floor,” I explain. “Dropped like a hot potato.”
“Why does that bother you?” Swan asks. “You’re good at hiding too.”
“Swan.” William shakes his head.
She sighs and closes her notebook. “Well. We kinda knew what we were getting into with him, right? Can’t expect someone with his social clout to just give it up.
Especially when he’s trying that hard to keep up an image.
I just think we should lower our expectations.
Derek’s going to show up at the meetings because he obviously has to, and that’s it.
” She pauses. “And I’m lowering my expectations for you, too, Jae. I really thought we could be friends.”
“Wh-what?” I stammer. It’s like she slammed a door right in my face. I didn’t join Free Verse just to write poetry. I joined for friends.
“You ran off without saying anything,” she says. “I still don’t know why my question was so offensive.”
“It wasn’t your question. It was … You … You can’t just say anything without consequences. Sometimes your words affect people.”
“What did I say?”
I wince. Unforgivable. How can I explain that without saying the truth?
“See, Jae?” she says. “You can’t even tell me what was wrong with what I asked.” She sighs, closes her eyes. “Look, I’m sorry for giving you a hard time. I just don’t take rejection well.”
“I didn’t reject you.”
“It felt like it.”
I press my lips shut and take a breath. “I … I’m sorry. It’s nothing. Really. Don’t worry about it.”
“Okay,” she says. “You’re entitled to your secrets, and I’m sorry if I offended you. But it might happen again because I still don’t know what I did wrong.” She shrugs. “But hey, Ceej, I got a star poem for you.”
I stare at my food. Stab my milk carton with the straw over and over again. Rewrite all the moments that have gone wrong since I set foot in Bellwood High. Starting with Miguel. Starting with Derek.
For the rest of lunch, Swan is normal. Almost. She talks to me, but it’s as if she’s craning her head over a giant wall to do it.